Car Wars and Health Care

Everyone knows how crappy the service at  the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is.  This is especially true in more populated areas.

Due to my wife's busy night schedule and my lack of proof of licensure to drive, getting our two cars registered and getting our new state's driver's licenses is requiring three or four trips to the DMV.

First you have your car inspected and pay for the inspection and any repairs that need to be done.  Then you go to the DMV, and you wait in a long line to get to the desk.  At the desk they tell you what documentation you need.  You are missing something, so you go home and arrange to get that document.  On the second visit, you wait in the long line and eventually get to the desk where the proper documents are ordered and stapled, and you are given a number.  The second phase of waiting, you at least get to sit.  You watch a board that lights up with numbers and listen to an automated female voice call out numbers.  After an hour or so of this, finally your number is called, and you can hand the papers over to a person who will complete your registration and give you a tag for $250.  Next you have the second car inspected and repeat the process once for the registration of the second car and then twice again for the driver's licenses.

Because the DMV is so horrible and bureaucratic, opponents of a single payer health care system argue that government run health care would be like going to the DMV.  And that argument must be taken seriously.  The problem with the DMV, of course, is simple underfunding.  Even though the DMV is universally hated, it could be made wonderful if tax revenues were used to double the number of DMV stations and streamline the paperwork requirements.  And the decision whether to fully fund a well-functioning DMV presumably rests with the people.  Yet, despite the fact that most people hate the DMV, it remains underfunded.  And that's the danger of a single payer health care system.  It too could be underfunded and become a disaster.

Underfunding seems to be a natural result of democracy with a two-party system that requires compromise.  Education, social security, medicare, etc are all funded based on a compromise between people who want to fully fund them, and people who want them to go away.  Thus, not quite enough money is allocated to these programs, and so they don't work well, acting as evidence for the proposition that they inherently do not work.  It is misleading evidence, however, because your can't judge whether something is inherently good if you never really try it.  That's why when the party who wants something funded gets control it should not compromise.  (and of course this applies to the other side's ideas as well)  With compromise as the necessary requirement, neither side gets to fully test its ideas.  As has been said, Democracy is the worst form of government except all of the rest.  The solution will come only when things are desperate and both toss aside their ideals and do something pragmatic.